Learn To Rest When Your Glass is Heavy

How’s the water in your glass?

A friend of mine sent me this great lesson on stress that is circulating around the web. It’s a tale about a young woman leading a seminar who is holding a glass of water while her audience is assuming she will ask that is it half empty or half full question but rather to the surprise of her audience asks “How heavy is this glass of water?” People call out various actual weight measures.

But instead she states, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance. In each case it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

Then she continued, “And, that’s the way it is with stress. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won’t be able to carry on.”

“As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we’re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden – holding stress longer and better each time practiced.”

How true it that! It is so hard to keep holding something we are troubled by! Our burdens weigh us down so and get heavier and heavier.

Finding time to rest when your glass is too heavy

The presenter suggested that as early in the day as you can, you should put all your burdens down and not carry them through the evening and into the night. And if you want to you can pick them up again tomorrow if you must.

It’s hard to rest when our mind is full and our heart is heavy.

In my experience emotional pain seems way more difficult to contend with in the middle of the night. It is a lonely time when the house is quiet and the world around me is asleep to be wide awake and deeply troubled by something I can’t let go of.

So just how can we let go and let ourselves rest?

How to rest when you have too much to do

Setting an intention to let burdens go and be solidly in the moment of life you are in is a choice and important decision to make. It is a practice and it takes practice and practice and practice and even more practice to do.

Sometimes writing down what is troubling me helps me let it go. I’ve written in a journal for many years. I pick it up when I need to clear my mind and my heart.

There is a breathing practice that can help get us to our body’s relaxation state: breathe in through your nose to a count of 4 and exhale through your mouth to a count of 6. This has helped me countless times since I learned it.

Things to remember when you are stressed

That lesson on stress sent to me also included the following important things to remember:

• Accept the fact that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue!
• Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
• Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
• Drive carefully… It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker.
• If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
• If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
• It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
• Never buy a car you can’t push.
• Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.
• Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
• Since it’s the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
• The second mouse gets the cheese.
• When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
• Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
• Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.
• We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
• A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.
• And most importantly…save the earth….. it’s the only planet with chocolate!

We have to remember when all else fails that both chocolate and laughter are the best medicine after all!

What do you do to put your burdens rest?

Contact Me together in therapy we can explore life coping tools for you to incorporate into your life’s journey!